A steadily increasing demand exists for animal products, such as meat and milk, of which the consumers can obtain knowledge with respect to the breeding conditions of the animals from which the products origin, the breeding conditions being understood in a broad sense and including a lot of details relating, e.g., to feeding of the animals and their general well-being. Furthermore, it is of interest to the farmers to handle the animals individually, especially with respect to feeding, so that the most efficient and economical breeding is performed. This handling should however be as automated as possible since the cost of human labour is steadily increasing in most of the world.
A number of arrangements for individual control of animals are known from the prior art in particular for pigs, for cattle and for milch cows.
One apparatus for automatic, individual feeding of animals is disclosed in DE 37 01 864 in which the animals are weighted and/or identified at one station from which each animal is selectively lead to one of a plurality of individual feeding pens, is lead back to the stock if they have been fed or is lead to a separation area by means of moving or turning the weighting/identification station between the different destinations. The identification of the animals is made by means of an identification tag fastened to each animal and the amount of feed in the feeding pens is measured out for the individual animal.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,923 discloses an automatic animal feeding system, in particular for cows, in which the animals are fed individually upon identification of the animal from automatically reading of an identification tag attached to each of the animals. The amount of feed provided to the animal is based on information collected about each animal, such as the animals weight. The animal may be weighted manually where after the weight is entered into the control system, or the animals may be weighted automatically on a commonly accessible scale which periodically measured the weight of the animal, on scales provided in the feeding pens or on scales provided in the parlour stalls.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,647 relates to an automated method and system for providing individual animal electronic identification, measurement and value based management of cattle in a large cattle feedlot. Animals are individually identified and measured by weight, external dimensions and characteristics of internal body tissue. The individual identification and registration of the cattle with respect to physical and other information is used for calculating the optimal time for slaughtering. There is no mentioning of an individual feeding of the cattle or feeding means and the cattle are fed directly on the ground in the herd.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,833 relates to a computer controlled equipment for breeding of calves and other animals, comprising means for identification and weighing of each animal, computation of amount and composition of feed from the weight, the increase in weight, thickness of fat layer, temperature etc.
German Patent Application DE 3 623 816 relates to an equipment in which the animals are weighted and an amount of feed is computed according to the individual weight and weight gain of the animal and the feed ratio is dispersed and registered.
Several other patents and patent applications relates to controlled breeding of animals, such as F1 930 961, GB 2 190 767, GB 2 220 834, GB 2 232 053, DE 195 21 570, FR 2 507 776, FR 2 623 688, EP 0 657 098, WO 84/01688, WO 91/10358, WO 96/00003, WO 98/47351, WO 97/47187, WO 98/39475, U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,240, U.S. Pat. No. 4,463,706, U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,892, U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,321, U.S. Pat. No. 4,498,424, U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,372, U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,864 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,719.
However, none of the above identified references include the tracing between each individual animal and thereby the potential products derived therefrom and the identification of the particular feed being fed to said individual animals.